Write a 2-3 page critical analysis of the poem,
typed and double-spaced.

Don't ask any questions and don't feel anxious; there isn't any "right" or "wrong" way to write this piece. Simply draw on whatever your understanding of "critical essay" may be. (The point of this "diagnostic essay" is to explore just what we all think a "critical essay" is. By the end of the term, your understanding will likely be very different, so this first essay will act as a touchstone and tell us where you started.)

Please take no more than 40 minutes to write your essay.

Include a title
or header that identifies the poem you have analyzed, and don’t forget your
name.

When finished, put

the document in our Blackboard Digital Dropbox, with your name and

"First Day Essay" on any subject lines.

The Anniversary

You raise the ax,

the block of wood screams in half,

while I lift the sack of flour

and carry it into the house.

I'm not afraid of the blade

you've just pointed at my head.

If I were dead, you could
take the boy,

hunt, kiss gnats, instead of my moist lips.

Take it easy, squabs are
roasting,

corn, still in husks, crackles,

as the boy dances around the table:

old guest at a wedding party for two sad-faced clowns,

who together, never won a round of anything but hard
times.

Come in, sheets are clean,

fall down on me for one more year

and we can blast another hole in ourselves without a
sound.

—Ai

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother's countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a
buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by
dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still
clinging to your shirt.

—Theodore Roethke

Bestiary for the Fingers of My Right Hand

1.

Thumb,
loose tooth of a horse.

Rooster to
his hens.

Horn of a
devil. Fat worm

They have attached to my
flesh

At the time
of my birth.

It takes four to hold him
down,

Bend him in half, until the
bone

Begins to
whimper.

Cut him off. He can take
care

Of himself. Take root in the earth,

Or go hunting with wolves.

2.

The second points the way.

True way. The path crosses the earth,

The moon and some stars.

Watch, he points further.

He points to himself.

3.

The middle one has backache.

Stiff, still unaccustomed to
this life:

An old man
at birth. It's about
something

That he had and lost,

That he looks for within my
hand,

The way a dog looks

For fleas

With a
sharp tooth.

4.

The fourth is mystery.

Sometimes as my hand

Rests on the table

He jumps by himself

As though
someone called his name.

After each bone, finger,

I come to him, troubled.

5.

Something stirs in the fifth

Something perpetually at the
point

Of birth. Weak and submissive,

His touch is gentle.

It weighs a tear.

It takes the mote out of the
eye.

—Charles Simic

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And
sorry I could not travel both

And
be one traveler, long I stood

And
looked down one as far as I could

To
where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then
took the other, as just as fair,

And
having perhaps the better claim,

Because
it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though
as for that the passing there

Had
worn them really about the same,

And
both that morning equally lay

In
leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh,
I kept the first for another day!

Yet
knowing how way leads on to way,

I
doubted if I should ever come back.

I
shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere
ages and ages hence:

Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I
took the one less traveled by,

And
that has made all the difference.

—Robert Frost

Traveling Through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the WilsonRiver road.

It is usually best to roll
them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I
stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was
large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side
brought me the reason—

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I
hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its
lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

I stood in the glare of the
warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my
only swerving—,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

—William Stafford

To a Blossoming Pear Tree

Beautiful natural blossoms,

Pure delicate body,

You stand without trembling.

Little mist of fallen starlight,

Perfect, beyond my reach,

How I envy you.

For if you could only listen,

I would tell you something,

Something
human.

An old man

Appeared to me once

In the
unendurable snow.

He had a singe of white

Beard on his face.

He paused on a street in Minneapolis

And stroked
my face.

Give it to me, he begged.

I'll pay you anything.

I flinched. Both
terrified,

We slunk away,

Each in his own way dodging

The cruel
darts of the cold.

Beautiful natural blossoms,

How could you possibly

Worry or bother or care

About the ashamed, hopeless

Old man? He was so near death

He was willing to take

Any love he could get,

Even at the risk

Of some mocking policeman

Or some cute young wiseacre

Smashing his dentures,

Perhaps leading him on

To a dark place and there

Kicking him in his dead groin

Just for the fun of it.

Young tree, unburdened

By anything but your
beautiful natural blossoms

And dew, the dark

Blood in my body drags me

Down with
my brother.

—James Wright

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious
looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night!
Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the
tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing
down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats
in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What
price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt
Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard
point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our
silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got
out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters
of Lethe?